The Trials of the Weasleys
by DomesticatedWerewolves
Summary: From animated sock puppets to the portraits screaming every time someone sneezes too loud, happy moments and gloomy memories come hand in hand. Bits and pieces of life in Grimmauld Place before the arrival of Harry.


Kana: Just a little something I cooked up one day. Nothing much. I blame it mostly on my liking of the Weasley family and Sirius. And a crap-load of soda mixed with the early hours of the morning. Mmmn…early hours of the morning.

**Disclaimer:** Saying I own Harry Potter is like saying I wrote the Bible. J.K. Rowling owns it.

**Notes on the Holy Scripture:** This is set at the beginning of summer, probably right after Sirius offered up Grimmauld Place as headquarters for the Order. Before everyone started to arrive and it was visited regularly, I see it as a sort of 'work in progress' for Mrs. Weasley. She would kick some ass. Sorry if I focus too much on Sirius, I just like him, and since this is a one-shot focusing on _him_. :D I tried to keep them all in character, but since this is my first fic on HP it might be a little dodgy. People who know me who read this are gonna be like 'Oh that _Kana_'.

**Summary: ** From animated sock puppets to the portraits screaming every time someone sneezes too loud, happy moments and gloomy memories come hand in hand. Bits and pieces of life in Grimmauld Place before the arrival of Harry.

I wrote this for my friend's birthday, as she loves Harry Potter (the character, actor and series) and was the one who got me into it. Little did she know that she started a circus of _crazy_.

xxx

**The Trials of the Weasleys **

**One-Shot**

xxx

As soon as they entered the house, everyone made various noises of repulsion. The adults politely covered theirs up as soft coughs, Hermione and Ginny each made quiet grunts and stopped themselves halfway through covering their mouths, while Ron emitted a kind of '_blegh'_ that was quickly muffled; the twins threw caution to the wind and started making realistic dry heaves, doubling over and pretending to vomit. They were instantly silenced by a withering glare from Mrs. Weasley.

But they all hadn't done this without reason. The foyer (if it could be called that) was dark, dank, and smelled faintly of burnt cabbage. What little light there was came from hideous gas lanterns that seemed to have been originally made in shining copper; now they were mostly green, turning the light a ghostly color. The carpet was threadbare and so coated in dust that one could see the footprints of whoever had been pacing back and forth. The wallpaper had once been a black that might have attempted to look dignified – now it had the color of an old black dress that had been washed too many times, and it was peeling, revealing patches of damp drywall.

"This is _so_ cheery," George said, flinching when something dripped on him. He looked up, trying to find the source of the drip. "How come Sirius hasn't turned it into a bed and breakfast?"

"Because I haven't found bedspreads to match the drapes upstairs." The dark profile of Sirius appeared from the cloud of blackness outside the range of the gas lamps. "It's a shame really."

He looked like one good strong breeze might do him in. The clothes he wore hung off him ("Peakish," mumbled Mrs. Weasley, borderline horrified), and his hair had a stringy, greasy look from want of washing. If his eyes sank into his head anymore they would disappear, and he looked like a raccoon. His voice was hoarse and cracked often.

"Sorry if I startled you," Sirius muttered, a little sheepish once he caught the look of uneasiness Ginny was giving him. "I'm used to being silent."

"How come?" asked Fred, and his voice carried a little too much.

A horrible screeching filled the air, causing some to cover their ears and making others let out squeaks of terror.

"_Filth! Filth! Blood-traitors and scum, befouling the house of my fathers! Begone from this place, begone!"_

Heaving a great, exasperated sigh, Sirius answered, "That's why." His lips becoming thin and bloodless, he drew in a deep breath. With a scream to match the horrid cursing coming from above them, Sirius roared, "Shut up you crazy old bat before I cut off Kreacher's head and nail it to your _face_!" The reason behind his rough voice suddenly became clear.

With a distressed sort of wail, the screaming cut off, sending the house into tense silence.

"Have you got banshees in this place?" Ron asked, his face pale expect for a purplish smudge on his lips.

"No, she's much worse," Sirius said disdainfully, his shoulders hunched. "My mum's portrait is a light sleeper."

"You just called your mum a _bat_," Fred said cheerfully, clapping Sirius on the back. The man lurched forward slightly.

"That was _wicked_," George added.

Sirius's face broke out into a sad sort of smile, and with a much more jovial air to him, led them into the house.

xxx

After three days, the state of the house was noted, and the few who weren't members of the Weasley family noticed something profound. Even in its shabby condition, Grimmauld Place soon transformed into the Busy and Most Noisy House of Weasley.

Sirius noticed little things that suggested someone else was living in the House of Black. Stacks of books started to appear on every coffee table, nightstand, and desk, easily Hermione's M.O. (along with S.P.E.W. pins littering the floor like dandruff). The ancient, delicate china was repaired of most of its superficial cracks by Mrs. Weasley, and suddenly the kitchen smelled like soap instead of rot. Mr. Weasley's collection of plugs could be found in the drawing room. Pigwidgeon was always above their heads, hooting shrilly and sometimes flying headfirst into somebody's hair or a wall. The twins instantly took a liking to ripping away the curtain covering Mrs. Black and – with Sirius's blessing – having shouting matches with her (they were getting quite good).

Mrs. Weasley promptly suggested cleaning out the old house in her first day there, something that everyone had been silently thinking. The dust was layered on thick, there were bodies of dead animals in the corners, the ceiling dripped frequently, there were no less than two boggarts, the mold smell was almost unbearable, and Buckbeak had made Mrs. Black's bedroom his nest, ripping apart quilts and shredding the mattress. Sirius seemed to enjoy the last bit.

"How is the ceiling's dripping if there's no running water?" George asked on the second day, having just been nailed uncomfortably by a drop of water on the crown of his head.

The lack of running water was a big problem. So far they had been able to cope with _Aguamenti_ charm, but showering and the like was difficult – and magic water was _always_ cold. Plus Sirius hated cold water, and Mrs. Weasley was considering blasting him with the charm just to get rid of the musty dog smell he gave off.

"We just need to find the source of the leak, fix it, and it will be smooth sailing from there," Fred said wistfully.

"Cause in this house, there's only _one_ leak," said Ron bitterly.

In fact, at number twelve Grimmauld Place, there were exactly fourteen leaks in the old copper pipes. Most of them were grouped together, but five were scattered around the top floors, where the dripping was the worst. Massive brown stains were smeared over parts of the ceiling, marking the biggest leaks.

On the fifth day, Mr. Weasley gave the gift of running water.

It came out with a horrible sound that made you want to grind your molars together, and it was the color of bronze because of the rusty pipes. But it was warm and (as far as anyone could tell) clean. No one had gotten cholera from drinking tap water, so that was a plus.

It had come at the price of a full day of going through the house and magically and manually mending the old copper pipes, but it was worth it. Everyone – including Sirius – took a warm shower as soon as they could, and the mood in Grimmauld Place became less somber.

And it smelled a whole lot better too.

xxx

Sirius Black was strongly considering killing his hairbrush. Its handle had snapped twice, making him repair it via magic, and it was slowly becoming clogged with hair, reducing its usefulness. He sat in one of hideous and uncomfortable armchairs that his family had thought gave the house a 'mature appeal'. He thought it looked like someone had carved a chair out of stone, put fabric over it, and then vomited patterns on it. And the lack of comfort wasn't doing anything for his mood.

"When I'm done with you," he vowed to the brush, "I'm going to rip all your bristles out, smash your handle into splinters, and set you on fire." Then he went back to worrying at a large knot on the left side of his head.

Ginny walked into the sitting room while he was threatening the hairbrush. "Are you mad?"

"Why would you think that?" Sirius growled, not divvying his attention from brushing his gnarled hair. There was a loud crack as the old, poor, abused, rotting, (add adjective meant to cause pity here) hairbrush snapped once again. "_BUGGER YOUR MOTHER ON A CACTUS!" _he roared, ripping the head of the brush out of his hair.

Ginny thought he was a nutter because he was insulting an inanimate object. But Sirius was too busy insulting an inanimate object to notice.

And because he screamed, Sirius's own mother woke and did the same. Fred and George took their chance and barked cheerful insults at her while they forced the curtains around her shut. When there was relative peace in the Place, Ginny moved closer to Sirius, who was muttering angry spells that weren't catching (because one should never hex, curse, bewitch, or transfigure something while angry).

"Here," she said quietly, holding out a perfectly whole hairbrush. "Mum said that you were trying to comb your hair."

"Did she now?" Sirius eyed the brush suspiciously. Not because it looked like it was dangerous, but because it was a bright pink that practically _glowed_ in the dim lighting.

"Well," Ginny rocked back on her heels, "Actually; she ranted for a few minutes about the lack of hairbrushes in Azkaban, so I kind of put two and two together and got my own brush."

"Thanks." Sirius held the brush at arm's length for a moment, as if the pinkness would bite. It looked oddly out of place in the darkness of Grimmauld Place, like a china kitten on the nightstand of a serial killer. Then he threw the two pieces of the rejected hairbrush aside and started working at the knots in his hair once again.

After ten minutes – with Ginny watching in rapt attention on a nearby couch, which was just as hideous as the armchair – Sirius had worked out all but the worst knots. He used his wand to cut them out and trim his hair, leaving it a centimeter above his shoulders.

Sirius turned his head from side to side, looking bewildered.

"What's wrong?" Ginny asked, standing a little.

"My head feels _lighter_," Sirius said, a smile spreading across his face.

Ginny collapsed onto the couch in a fit of giggles, sending up a plume of dust.

xxx

Ron was in a good mood. Sirius's batshit crazy mum had only blown up twice that day, and he had managed to keep Hermione away from the topic of S.P.E.W. when he spoke with her.

Until finally…she cornered him.

Not literally, mind you. The corners in Grimmauld Place were clogged with mold, the stench of mildew, and spiders so big that Ron thought they were baby acromantulas; they were not places he allowed himself to be trapped in. Even if the consequence was death.

In fact, Ron was wishing for death as Hermione began prattling about the cruel practice of using house elves as dart boards or cricket bats or _something_ stupid like that. He shut her out altogether as he tried his best to speed walk down the hall. Hermione didn't take the hint and jogged after him, two of her strides covering one of his.

"Shut up for a second," Ron said suddenly, but not unkindly.

Hermione took a breath, ready to tell him off for using such crude language. But, over the self-righteous sound of her inhale, she heard it.

"_You killed me_."

Putting a finger to her lips, Hermione pointed to the door they had stopped in front of. It led into an old study, one that Mrs. Weasley had stated at breakfast that she was going to tackle tomorrow. It was notoriously noisy, and whatever took residence up inside it had woken up Mrs. Black seventy-five percent of the time. Whether it was a ghoul or something else, it wasn't good news.

"It has to be a boggart," Hermione whispered.

"How do you know?" Ron hissed back, arguing just for the sake of arguing.

Instead of beginning an explanation as to why she knew it was a boggart, Hermione simply nudged the door open, revealing the horror inside.

Sirius had stated that he would take care of the noise-maker inside the study for Mrs. Weasley, in and attempt to smooth over the shaky relationship he had with her (she still was in shock over how 'peakish' he was). He was a competent wizard, even after years of lacking a wand, and should have had no difficulty tackling a ghoul.

Except, like Hermione said, it wasn't a ghoul.

So, five minutes previous to Ron's frantic, almost-dash down the hallway, when the last Black has opened the door, he was faced with a boggart. And now, as the study's door slid open, Ron and Hermione saw Sirius Black facing James Potter with his stolen wand held stiffly at his side.

The only reason that they knew it to be the elder Potter was because he looked like an older version of Harry. But he was clad in a dark blue jumper and black slacks, and his face was grave. His glare seemed to bore right through Sirius's head, and how scowl was so deep that it was practically tattooed onto his face.

"You killed me, Sirius," James said again.

Sirius shuddered, but he did not show any other emotion other than revulsion. "_Riddikulus,_" he said softly, his voice nothing but air. He did not raise his wand, so the spell did nothing.

"You should have talked me out of using Peter as my Secret Keeper. Why didn't you?" the boggart said again.

Hermione saw Sirius's back tense up, and she pulled Ron forward before the man could snap. She pulled out her own wand and said the charm, and even though Ron was still in shock at what he was seeing, the boggart grew confused. It switched from James to a massive spider to McGonagall to James once more, only this time it was grotesquely distorted. "_Riddikulus_," Hermione said doggedly.

With a tiny wail, the boggart's form shattered with a sound like a balloon bursting, showering them with particles of whatever substance it was, leaving the sensation of rain. Ron had been dumbfounded throughout the procedure, until finally he closed his mouth and swallowed.

"Are you alright?" Hermione asked, turning around to look at Sirius.

Only he wasn't there anymore.

xxx

In the days that followed, Sirius began to sink into the depression that had been dogging him ever since he came back to Grimmauld Place. He grew curt and short-tempered, acting very much like a bear coming out of hibernation. He stopped combing his hair with the brush Ginny had unofficially given him, ending the routine he had started for himself and signaling that something was very wrong with him.

Only when he violently chased Kreacher around with a carving knife, fully prepared to cut off his head and finally nail it to his mother's portrait's face, did everyone realize how bad Sirius's condition really was.

"I wasn't thinking," Hermione said, and Ron practically declared blasphemy at the very thought. She ignored his and the twin's gasps of horror and continued. "_We_ weren't thinking about what was happening in his mind. He might _say _and_ know_ that he's innocent, but I don't think Sirius really believes that he didn't cause his friends' death."

Ginny nodded. "We need to do something to cheer him up." She looked wryly at Fred and George, who were most like Sirius in playfulness.

"We're on it," George said.

"Leave it to us," Fred chimed in.

"We can handle it."

"Completely."

"Don't worry about it."

"We'll paint a moustache on his mum."

"String Kreacher up like a piñata and give him a stick."

"Dye Kingsley's hair yellow while he sleeps."

"Blow up a toilet -."

"Okay!" Hermione had to cover up her smile with her hand and made a serious attempt to look somber, even while Ginny and Ron clung to each other to stay up while laughing. "You are the masters. But don't _destroy _anything."

The twin's faces fell.

"That rules out blowing up a toilet," Fred said, wiping a stray tear away from the corner of his eye.

xxx

But the depression that Sirius faced was much bigger than what the Weasley twins could handle. They tried everything, from making pillboxes tap-dance to enchanting the large portrait of the Black family over the mantle to sing bawdy songs (the picture Sirius was absent from the sing-along, due to its own depression after Regulus had mussed his hair). They even tried to _actually_ blow up the toilet that was in the bathroom that ran off of Mrs. Black's old room, resulting in Mrs. Weasley hexing them as they hurried away from the scene of the crime.

Nothing could make Sirius crack a smile, not even when Ron came shrieking out of his bedroom with Hedwig screeching and attacking him, not letting up until she had been detained by Ginny, who was not harmed. He had simply retreated to his bedroom to escape the noise.

One day the twins bewitched two socks and sewed buttons onto them to act as eyes. While hiding around the corner (though they made a show about keeping the puppets a 'secret' from Sirius), they made the puppets float over to Sirius, who was sprawled in the armchair that he loathed. He barely looked up as the ratty old socks levitated in front of him.

"Hello _mistah_ Weasley," the blue buttoned sock puppet said in a voice that sounded like Fred pretending to have an exaggerated stuffy accent.

"Why, hello _mistah_ Weasley," said the red buttoned puppet said, with an equally exaggerated accent, only this time it was voiced by George. "What a lovely day it is, don't you think?"

"Yes, it is a very chipper day, isn't it?" said the blue one.

The red buttoned one spun about to look at Sirius. Its sock-mouth dropped open in a gape, and it gasped. "My God! This man is not celebrating this lovely day! How could he not be?"

"Why, he reminds me very much like a sulking _dog_, don't you think, _mistah _Weasley?" the George puppet said in profound shock.

"He does, doesn't he?" the red one nodded in agreement. "Do you know what the biggest similarity between dogs and men is?"

"No I do not, _mistah_ Weasley," said Blue. "What is it?"

"Why, they both have an inordinate fascination with crotches!"

The twins smirked at the brilliance (and immaturity) of their jokes. But Sirius said nothing, instead waving his wand at the sock puppets. They fell to the floor, lifeless.

"He _killed_ them," Ron muttered in horror as he, Hermione, and Ginny watched from the kitchen door.

"They weren't alive to begin with," Hermione whispered back prudently. But Ron's point had gotten across – the twins had had as much success in cheering up Sirius as a hearse would have.

At that moment, Mr. Weasley (not _mistah_) burst in from the foyer.

"The Ministry has expelled Harry!" he choked out, gasping for air after the run that he had obviously had.

"What?" Sirius stood up so fast that he stumbled as black spots appeared in front of his eyes. "But the Ministry can't do that!" He had completely skidded over the subject of _why_ Harry had been expelled from Hogwarts.

"Dumbledore is confronting Fudge about that now," Mr. Weasley said, hurrying towards the kitchen. "Ginny, where's Errol?"

"Outside," Ginny squeaked, moving out of her father's way. He was beginning to resemble a whirlwind, something only her mother could do.

"Damn." Mr. Weasley stopped and thought for a moment, tapping his lips with his fingers. "No matter, I'll use a Ministry one." He began to turn on the spot, preparing to Apparate.

"Wait!" Sirius leapt forward, but it was too late. Mr. Weasley had gone before he could ask why Harry had been expelled.

That made matters worse. For all of two minutes, Sirius started to pace furiously, muttering things under his breath. It was only until a certain werewolf came in from the foyer (much more calmly than Mr. Weasley had done) did he perk up and look slightly more cheerful.

"Remus! Remus! Moony! Remus! Moony! Moony! Remus!" Sirius cried, over and over, hopping and running and doing a very good impression of a dog's 'happy dance' that it was inclined to do when someone came through the door. His cries even started to blend together into meaningless barking, with vague notions of 'Remus' or 'Moony' hidden in them like cryptic messages.

Lupin just stood there, obviously used to Sirius acting like this. He even calmed him down by giving him a stare that one usually saved for the puppy that had just piddled on the carpet.

Sirius instantly clamped his mouth shut after meeting that stare head on by accident. "What happened with Harry?" he said after a moment, albeit very softly and very sheepishly.

Running a hand through his hair, Lupin softened his stare. "He preformed a Patronus charm in front of his cousin."

"The one that looks like a pig in a wig?" Sirius asked, quoting his godson.

Lupin sighed in exasperation at his friend's behavior. "Yes. That one."

Sirius's face was in utter bafflement. Lupin humored him by continuing the story, with Sirius giving him his undivided attention.

"We've managed to set a trial for him," Lupin began, and that was all it took for Sirius to come to the conclusion that –

"Harry's coming here?" Sirius said very quietly at first. His face brightened and the lined that had become semi-permanent smoothed out, and for the first time in days he grinned from ear to ear. "Harry's coming here!"

With that said, Sirius began running through the house, screaming 'Harry's coming' like a little boy would scream 'Santa's coming'. But to Sirius, the names Harry and Santa were interchangeable, as they both meant extreme fun. And he liked fun. Even when his mother woke up and started howling, Sirius just shut her curtains and continued to celebrate.

George let out a _pfft_ sound from where everyone still stood in shock.

"Well if we had known that Lupin and Harry would cheer him up," he began.

"We would have given the puppets fur and a messiah complex," Fred finished.

xxx

Kana is so happy that she finished her first Harry Potter fic that she ran screaming 'Harry's coming' through the house. It's four in the morning, so she got in trouble.

Kana: Holy _CRAP_ this is a long one-shot. Just the way I like it. I'm sorry if the whole boggart thing was too dramatic or cheesy or something, but I always figured that Sirius would see that as his worst fear. Either that or something keeping him from making fun of Snape. That's everyone's worst fear (shivers).

Let's all celebrate the completion of my first Harry Potter one-shot by reviewing.


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